Kerin

“Their eyes close and then open as one, looking down on me, and then up at the sky, as the wind circles them and moans, their gaping now, the airy rush their song, the rush: Yes.”
― Jesmyn Ward, Sing, Unburied, Sing

“Human lives were short and fragile. Time and illnesses consumed us, like flames burning away these pieces of wood. But it didn’t matter how long or short we lived. It mattered more how much light we were able to shed on those we loved and how many people we touched with our compassion.”
― Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, The Mountains Sing

“Though on the surface it seemed every person was different, this was not true.

At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end, the many losses we must experience on the way to that end.

We must try to see one another in this way.

As suffering, limited beings --

Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces.”
― George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

“Till this day, if you happen to listen to my heartbeat, you might hear the singing voice of my Auntie Tu. She nurtured my soul with songs so that I can sing on.”
― Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, The Mountains Sing